


Work With This

by veeagainst



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst and Humor, M/M, Marauders, Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter), Romantic Comedy, pre-Azkaban
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-28
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-24 21:52:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/945067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veeagainst/pseuds/veeagainst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Late in the first war against Voldemort, Sirius asks Remus on a date. The most surprising part is that Remus accepts. Humour, angst, and a little bit of fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Work With This

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the first three pages of this story (which is 20 pages in Word) about 10 years ago. I discovered it in a file folder the other day and decided to clean it up and finish it. The main problem, as you will see, is that I had such a hard time ending it that it reminds me of Return of the King. Also it includes a line I seem to wind up using in all my Wolfstar stories, which is Remus remarking that Sirius smells like a dog. It just seems like it has to happen.

‘Storm’s coming,’ Remus remarked to no one in particular.

‘Hell,’ said someone to his left, one of the Prewetts, maybe. ‘How soon?’

Remus frowned and eyed the sky. It was fading from an icy winter white into a deeper blue that reminded him of Sirius’s eyes. He was disturbed with the pace at which his mind had made that connection.  ‘I don’t know, half an hour?’

Vance frowned back at him and crouched lower in the blowing grass. ‘You can’t tell?’

‘Do I look like a weathervane?’ Remus muttered, concentrating on squinting through the windows of the battered farmhouse ahead of them.

‘I just thought…’ Vance’s voice trailed off and Remus snorted into the wind.

‘Werewolf senses?’ he asked, shifting his wand nervously between his hands.

‘No,’ she said, too quickly.

‘Yes,’ James said from Remus’s immediate right. He had his head down, forehead pressed to the dirt, and the words came out with a puff of dust.

‘Going to snow,’ Remus offered helpfully, slapping James over the head.

‘Thanks, couldn’t tell,’ James muttered, spitting dirt. ‘It’s not bloody negative degrees out here or anything.’

Remus wondered if it was. He had been sweating, coldly, for the past fifteen minutes. Hiding in the high grass, observing a house suspected of being a Death Eater hangout, he could barely register the elements. This was his fourteenth raid with the Order of the Phoenix. Raids two through thirteen had not induced such a bad case of the nerves. He wondered if outside circumstances might be contributing to his shaking hands and fluttering stomach.

‘How many of us are here?’ he asked for the third time.

‘Five,’ said the first voice, again, still a possible Prewett. Remus did not know them well, yet. Might never get to know them if things kept going along at this rate. ‘You, me, my brother, James, and Emmeline.’

‘Right,’ Remus muttered. That was three people he didn’t know if he could trust with a wand and one he sort of trusted, maybe, so long as no drinking was involved. He adjusted his grip on his own wand one more time. ‘And how many Death Eaters, did we think?’

‘There were seven going in there when I got here an hour ago,’ James offered. ‘They put up wards out where that fox is.’

‘Which fox?’ Remus asked. He followed James’s pointing finger towards a dirty red carcass ten feet away on the ground. ‘Oh,’ he added unnecessarily. ‘Those kind of wards.’

‘Death Eaters, hello,’ James said. ‘They like death.’

‘Or they eat it,’ said the second Prewett. ‘Really, we’re unclear on the origin of the name.’

‘Aren’t we a witty band?’ Vance asked.

‘The Death Eaters may have sexier uniforms,’ James said, brushing dust from his sleeves, ‘but the Order has better jokes.’

‘Sexier uniforms? You don’t think my mud-encrusted robe does it for all the ladies?’ Remus asked, slapping James again. He neglected to bring up the men – man – who it also seemed to do it for. He was rewarded for his slap with a shower of cold dirt. Brushing it from his hair, he gripped his wand once more and said, ‘Right, well, I’m going in. Five to seven isn’t so bad, and I’m sick of waiting.’

‘What’s your hurry?’ James yawned. ‘You haven’t been out here very long. I’ve been here over an _hour_.’

‘Quit whinging,’ Remus snapped. ‘I’ve got places to be.’

‘What, have you got a date?’ James asked, sitting up sharply.

Remus blushed, very much against his will. ‘Go to hell.’

Vance said, ‘Ooh, who is she?’

‘Are we going to do something about these Death Eaters or not?’

The blondest of the Prewetts laughed and said, ‘Changing the subject is not going to help you.’

‘Everyone knows,’ the other added, ‘that ninety-nine percent of a soldier’s life is spent waiting around for the action to begin. If we can’t talk about your romantic entanglements, what are we going to do?’

‘Defeat some evil wizards?’ Remus asked sarcastically. ‘Anyone else up for that?’

‘They’ve got up wards,’ James said. ‘Wards that cause death. Death is bad, I think we’re agreed. So, we wait.’

‘Everyone stop saying ‘death’,’ Remus muttered. There was a little silence, and then he sighed, ‘Fine, so I have got a date. In an hour.’

‘Well, I hope whomever it is understands that you’re a busy man with a lot of obligations,’ said Vance. ‘Because I highly doubt that we’re going to be out of here in an hour.’

 

Three hours later, bleeding from a nasty cut above his eye and bruised from being thrown through two thick farmhouse walls by a violent hex, Remus Apparated into his flat and walked heavily into the bathroom. He stood, hands on either side of the sink, and stared at his reflection in a daze.

‘Moony?’

Remus jumped, one hand flying to his wand, and the other flying to his hair, which he was one hundred percent certain was a disaster zone, not to mention still covered in dirt. And that had been Prongs’ fault, of course, the complete prick. ‘Padfoot?’

Sirius stepped into the doorway. He was dressed rather nicer than normal – actually, since Remus was suddenly hyper aware of everything about Sirius, he had to admit that he was dressed quite a lot nicer than normal – but his clothing was wrinkled; his hair was mussed and his eyes looked a bit puffy. 

‘I came over when you didn’t,’ Sirius said, leaning against the doorframe. ‘Fell asleep on your bed for a bit. Sorry about that.’ He seemed to be staring resolutely at the floor. ‘This Order business is exhausting, you know?’

‘Yes, well, yes,’ Remus said, and then he cut himself off before he started babbling. He was having a hard time dealing with this earnest incarnation of Padfoot.

He’d agreed to a date partly because Sirius had seemed so earnest when he’d asked. He’d said it quietly while Peter and James had been up at the bar during their Monday pub night five weeks ago – so quietly that when Remus had blurted out, ‘Sorry, what the fuck did you just ask me?’ he had sounded loud and crazy and had gotten so embarrassed that, when Sirius had said it again, this time in more clipped, enunciated tones, ‘Would you go on a date with me?’, Remus had looked at the solemn look on Sirius’s face and had stuttered a yes. Then he’d tried to put it off and put it off, and had been successful long enough that he’d thought the matter was closed until Sirius had sent him an owl this morning saying that he’d be over tonight to take him out, no ifs, ands, or buts.

Remus wanted the night over with so things could go back to normal. Sirius would stop being so earnest and go back to being flippant about everything, and Remus would prove to him that there wasn’t anything romantic between them. The problem was that, as soon as he’d agreed to go on the date, he seemed to have become maddeningly aware that there might well be. 

‘Remus?’ Sirius looked so unsure and nervous that it actually made Remus feel nauseous.

‘I’m really sorry,’ he said, pretending to look at the gash over his eye but secretly studying Sirius in the mirror. ‘I didn’t realize how long it was going to take.’

‘I figured,’ Sirius said. He was still looking at the floor like he thought he was going to find the holy grail somewhere in amongst the chipped tiles. ‘I was…’

‘I’m sorry if I worried you,’ Remus said, suddenly terrified that if he let Sirius rattle on he was going to blurt out some big scary emotions. Something about the hard set line of his mouth made Remus desperately scared. He knew that look on Sirius’s face from the very few times that Sirius’s insouciant persona had slipped and to have the force of it directed his way made him want to run out the door screaming. He had an abrupt realisation that maybe he should reach out, or maybe that he wanted to reach out, but this was _Sirius_ and how the hell was he supposed to navigate any of this?

‘It’s all right, now,’ Sirius said. He looked up, finally, and met Remus’s eyes in the mirror. He stepped forward, put his hand on Remus’s face, and for a heart-stopping second, Remus thought that he was going to kiss him. Then his fingers stroked the cut above his eyebrow and, with a whispered spell, Remus felt the skin grow warm and then heal. ‘How did the raid go? Is everyone all right?’

‘Yes, everyone’s fine,’ Remus said, glad to be back on quotidian ground. He could talk about the raid all night long if he had to. ‘The raid went shittily. We left four Death Eaters for the Ministry to find, but three got away.’

‘Four is better than none,’ Sirius said, his fingers now resting on Remus’s cheek.

‘We waited a long time in the snow,’ Remus continued, trying to not think about Sirius’s hands on his body, or his sudden desire to lean into Sirius’s warm touch, ‘just watching this bloody house. James had been there even longer than I had. And I kept telling them to hurry it up, that we ought to storm the place, but there were wards up, you see.’

Sirius licked his lips and smiled. It seemed to take a lot of effort. ‘And you said, “I have a date”, right?’ he asked.

‘James asked me if I did.’

‘And you said…?’

Remus hesitated. ‘Yes.’

‘How did that go over?’ Sirius asked, shy.

‘They made fun of me a bit, said hopefully that she – shit – that my date was understanding.’

Sirius’s smile flickered. ‘Bit weird, eh?’

‘A bit,’ Remus agreed. Sirius was still so close, he could barely breathe.

‘For me, too,’ Sirius said. ‘Never been on a date with a werewolf, you know.’

Remus sighed and twisted his head, putting his nose into Sirius’s hair accidentally. Sirius was much taller than anyone else he’d ever been close to like this. But it was easier to ask the question that had been burning up his mind for the past five weeks when he wasn’t looking directly at him. ‘But other men…’

‘A few times, yeah,’ Sirius said, much too casually. ‘Bother you, Moony?’

‘No,’ Remus said truthfully. That sort of explained some things. ‘There’s nothing wrong with being different, god knows I feel that way. That’s not… It’s just… You know, it’s me, now, that’s what’s the weird part.’

Sirius drew back. ‘You did say yes,’ he said warily.

‘Sirius Black, heartthrob of Gryffindor Tower, how could I say no?’ Remus asked, cursing himself inwardly, because he had just seen a way out of this thicket of scary emotions and he certainly had not taken it. ‘Heartthrob of Hogwarts, come to that.’ He hesitated; Sirius was still watching him, still looking wary. ‘So of course I leapt at the chance.’

Sirius smiled at him, but it was wavering and unsure. Remus felt like a complete ass and wondered if babbling further would help. Almost certainly not. Luckily, Sirius took a deep breath and said, ‘Listen, we’ve still got some dinner reservations if you want to go. I don’t want to make you do anything you don’t want to do…’

‘No, yes, I mean, let’s go,’ Remus said. Then he suddenly became intensely aware, yet again, of the state of his hair, and said, ‘Oh god, wait, Prongs threw so much dirt on me, just let me clean up, give me five minutes?’

Sirius actually grinned, which made Remus feel a hell of a lot better. Maybe he wasn’t going to be the worst date Sirius had ever had – after all, there was that infamous Hufflepuff blonde who’d thrown up on him at one of the Yule Balls. Thrown up on him twice, in fact. Remus felt certain he could do better than vomiting on Sirius _twice_.

Eight minutes of intensive preparations and some travel time later, Remus found himself wearing the nicest clothing he owned and sitting in the nicest restaurant he’d ever been in, feeling incredibly underdressed and so nervous that he was certain his body was dehydrating by way of his palms. Sirius ordered them a bottle of wine just as he discovered that the menu had no prices anywhere on it.

‘I, uhm,’ he started, as the waiter poured a small amount of the wine – whose label looked extremely fancy and probably just said the word ‘expensive’ over and over again in French – into Sirius’s glass, ‘I don’t see any, uhm, prices?’

‘No,’ Sirius said, as the waiter made a little gasping noise. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ He took a sip of the wine and said, ‘This is fine, thank you,’ which seemed to be a cue for the waiter to pour an enormous quantity into each of their glasses. Remus had the sinking feeling that this wine was much too nice to down in one, but he a. had a gutter palate and b. needed liquid courage more than he ever had in his life. He tried to take a surreptitious gulp and almost spilled it down his front.

‘Honestly,’ Sirius said, seeming not to have noticed Remus’s uncouth wine habits as he was the picture of a studious table-studier, ‘don’t worry about it. I asked you out, I’m taking you out.’ He looked up at Remus then and there was that little smile again and Remus would be damned but it was doing something to him.

‘Sirius,’ he said, and then he stopped and chewed his lip. The wine tasted excellent. As always when he encountered something expensive, he was shocked at what money could buy. ‘I just have to ask. Why on earth did you ask me on a date?’

Sirius sighed and swirled his wine in his glass. ‘Moony. Remus.’

‘What?’

‘Just… go with it.’ Sirius looked down again. ‘Just let’s have our date and then once it’s over I’ll answer all your questions.’

‘But…’

‘Please?’

The waiter came around again and Sirius smiled and let Remus order first and by the time he’d gone, Remus had decided that he would honour Sirius’s request. It was just one night, after all, and it seemed to matter a lot to someone who had spent three years of his life learning a highly illegal and notoriously difficult series of spells to become an Animagus for him. And once Remus had stopped worrying about it – aided by the wine, and the second bottle that Sirius had ordered before that one had even gone dry – he found that it was a lot easier to forget that they were even on a date and just to talk about all the things that he and Sirius had always had to talk about, which was all the things in the world.

Afterwards, they left the restaurant and Remus expected them to part ways, as it was quite late, but Sirius said, ‘I’ve got a surprise for you.’

He led them to an art gallery having a late showing of exactly the kind of post-postmodern art that Remus secretly adored but would never have admitted to liking in front of his friends, for whom things like ‘enjoying art’ and ‘being a twat’ were synonymous.

‘How did you know…?’ he asked Sirius, who gave him a big genuine grin and replied, ‘Oh, just a lucky guess?’

‘Because I’m a twat,’ Remus admitted. ‘A complete art wanker. The most pretentious kind of snob. Go on, say it.’

‘James has always said that,’ Sirius said, still grinning as he opened the door and held it for him, ‘but then,’ and here his words tumbled down in volume into a mumble, ‘I don’t agree with him.’ He ducked his head and waved at the door. ‘After you, Moony.’

The gallery was perfect and the show was perfect and Remus was drunk and he thought Sirius was too, so he talked about art as much as he wanted to, and Sirius never called him a twat and instead listened intently and then, best of all, said intelligent things back. When Sirius went to the toilets, Remus cycled through his brain, trying to remember Sirius ever before expressing an interest in art. That led him on to the thought that Sirius must have done some kind of homework _about art_ before the date, which meant that he had put a lot of effort into this, which meant…

Remus halted that line of thought right there and decided he was getting way too sober to deal with this. He bought them espresso vodka shots from the gallery bar and when Sirius came back, they did them together in front of a wall splashed with neon paint stippled across a black canvas.

‘Oh, that’s good,’ Sirius said, head back and blinking back tears. ‘It burns, but, you know, it’s good.’ Remus noticed that Sirius looked both very good and very much like he belonged in this kind of space, so he bought them another round and they stayed at the gallery until they were kicked out at three in the morning, at which point they found themselves invited by a boisterous group of arty types to join them on a boat cruising the Thames.

Somewhere in the night they wound up sober, the bottom of their empty wine glasses drying up into dark sediment as they held them and talked and watched the grey old river slide by beside them. It was a frigid night, the water dull-coloured in the ship’s running lights, and they huddled under blankets on deck as they talked. It wasn’t that Remus didn’t notice the cold, it was just that he didn’t care.

Dawn saw them walking on the north side of Tower Bridge, sipping tea from styrofoam cups, the boat having dropped them at St Katharine’s Wharf in front of a small teashop before carrying on its way, the occupants seemingly set to party well into the day. Both Sirius and Remus, however, had to work that day.

‘I didn’t realise it had gotten so late,’ Sirius said apologetically. ‘Or early, now, I suppose.’

‘That’s ok. Let’s sit,’ Remus said, his teeth chattering in the icy dawn air. ‘Got to finish my tea before I freeze to death…’

‘Good idea,’ Sirius agreed, sounding equally chilled.

They sat on a bench in front of the Tower, shoulders just touching, legs in parallel lines and almost touching too, and watched as the sky changed from dark to lighter grey. Sirens and horns cut through the air, but they sounded distant, distorted, far removed from this dream world of river and stone, currently empty of the tourists who would throng it later.

‘It’s like it belongs to us,’ Remus said, more softly than he’d intended, and beside him, Sirius smiled against the curve of his teacup.

‘It’s a beautiful morning.’

‘It’s a cold morning.’

Sirius hummed and sighed. ‘I meant, because I’m here with you.’

Remus paused and then said, ‘I had a wonderful night. Truly.’

‘Me too,’ Sirius said. ‘And,’ he added cheerfully, ‘the morning is going quite well thus far.’

Remus laughed. ‘So are you going to tell me…’

‘The date isn’t over,’ Sirius said, still staring out towards the water. ‘I’m going to walk you to your office and then we’ll say goodbye and then it will be over.’

‘That has to be cheating,’ Remus said, and Sirius smiled again. ‘Well, how am I going to find out what this was all about?’

Sirius shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe it will be a mystery forever.’

First Remus was exasperated, but then he realised belatedly that they were flirting. His next realisation – which he was man enough to admit to himself – was that he liked it. Sirius was a lively conversationalist, always ready with a witty reply, but the night had been tinged with the occasional moment of softness, of real feeling, that made this better than just verbal sparring. Somewhere in the past ten hours, he’d noticed that Sirius, whom he’d known for so many years, seemed to have become a different person – and one whom he felt he should have noticed was there all along. He came to a decision.

‘What if I take you out tonight?’ he asked.

Beside him, he could feel Sirius’s entire body go still. ‘Take me out? As in, on another date?’

‘We both had a great time on this one,’ Remus said, ‘and it seems like it’s the only way for me to find out what’s going on here, right?’

Sirius hesitated. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Look,’ Remus said, hazarding that putting his feelings on the line might prompt Sirius to do the same, ‘Initially I thought this was just a joke. That James had put you up to it. And now I think I’m hoping that that isn’t the case.’

‘No,’ Sirius said quietly. ‘It wasn’t. James doesn’t know a thing about it.’

Well. That was a revelation. Remus had previously been unaware that Sirius did _anything_ without informing James. He’d assumed that they owled each other when they went to the toilet.

‘Did you lose a bet with Pete?’

Sirius shook his head and swallowed. ‘All me.’

Remus liked that, both the way he said it and the fact that he had said it. ‘So go on a second date with me,’ he said. ‘Tonight. And we’ll talk about it.’

Sirius smiled, his face much brighter than the grey London January morning. ‘I’d like that.’

 

 

Sirius had walked him to his office at the university and left him with a simple goodbye to spend the rest of the day in a sleep-deprived haze of weird emotions and yesterday’s clothes. He sat at his desk in the PhD candidate’s office as other Magical Theorists who obviously cared enough about their careers to not have spent all night gallivanting about London on romantic business bustled in and out and he attempted to mark some terrible first year undergraduates’ essays and stay awake. James pestered him throughout the day with owl after owl wanting to know about his date, all of which he ignored, until a red howler came through the window and he finally wrote back, ‘It was nice, not my usual type’ and sent it on its way.

Around four in the afternoon, after he’d succumbed to a twenty minute nap in one of the stalls of the rarely-used gentlemen’s toilets behind the Potions Laboratory and was feeling somewhat refreshed, he heard a knock on the office door. Suspecting that James was about to burst through and subject him to an interrogation, he put his head on his desk and called, ‘Come in!’

It was Peter, however, who pushed open the door and came in, brandishing a sheet of parchment.

‘So guess what,’ he said without preamble.

Remus raised his head. ‘Hi Wormy, how’s it going, how’s the weather?’

‘Hi Remus, terrible, shit. Guess what?’

Remus had a terrified moment where he thought that Peter was about to announce that he had seen he and Sirius out on their date and he had no idea what he would say to that. ‘What?’

Peter handed him the parchment and lowered his voice. ‘You, me, and Sirius are being summoned to check out some warehouse for the Order.’

Remus’s stomach lurch took a ninety degree turn. What about their date this evening? And since when had he become so invested in this? ‘When?’

‘Right now,’ Peter said grimly. ‘Apparently it’s urgent.’

The door to the office opened again, and there was Sirius, wearing last night’s clothes and looking thoroughly exhausted. ‘Hey Pete,’ he said, looking anywhere but at Remus. ‘Remus.’

Peter frowned. ‘You’re dressed smartly,’ he said to Sirius, and Remus wanted to point out that he was, too, but decided that a. Sirius being dress smartly looked a lot, well, smarter than he did and b. that that probably wasn’t important right now.

‘Yeah,’ Sirius said noncommittally from the doorway, ‘so, are we doing this?’

Behind him, Remus heard the tell-tale sound of an owl’s talons touching down on a windowpane. He pushed up from his desk and slammed down the blinds in a single fluid motion. ‘I guess we had better.’

After Apparating to a general waypoint and getting lost in a maze of mostly-deserted warehouses, the three of them wound up crouched outside of a dingy brick building that fronted onto a canal for a solid two hours, attempting to glean information about what was transpiring within with limited success. Together, they had rigged up a listening spell and had cast it through a broken window onto the disused factory floor inside the warehouse, but deep noises from within the building itself and the sounds of the boats on the main channel of the river not far beyond meant that everything seemed to be coming from tinnily far away, just perpetually out of the range of hearing.

‘It’s like listening so someone speaking Dutch over a tannoy,’ Sirius muttered and Peter, his head down and eyes shut, the picture of concentration, snorted.

Remus, for his part, kept falling asleep against the wall of the warehouse and then jerking awake in a panic that he was mussing up his best clothing, though at this point it was probably too far gone for it to matter. At one point, he floated back into consciousness and heard Peter and Sirius having a whispered argument about something that seemed terribly important, but a few moments’ listening revealed that it was about the current controversy over who should play keeper on the national quidditch team. He tuned back out and only woke up when Peter shook his shoulder.

Sirius was standing up now, at the corner of the warehouse, cradling the old ear horn they’d used to channel their listening spell, standing in that way that he had when he was very alert that always reminded Remus of his dog form, ears tilted forward, tail at attention.

‘They’re coming out of the building,’ Peter whispered to Remus. ‘We’re trying to see who they are.’

Remus and Peter crept forward so that they were right behind him and then they heard the sounds of the warehouse doors opening and voices drifting into the evening. A thick fog had settled over the entirety of the Docklands and all Remus could make out were shadows and the occasional sweeping cloak or glinting mask.

‘Their costumes really are very stupid, aren’t they,’ Peter murmured.

‘Death Eating – come for the fancy dress, stay for the meal deals,’ Sirius whispered.

‘A literal bloody Sainsbury’s,’ Remus whispered back, and Peter grinned. More moments passed, but Remus could hear nothing.

‘Oh god, I’ve been completely useless, haven’t I?’ he asked eventually, stretching and feeling every joint in his body clack with the cold. ‘And it’s miserable out here.’

‘Well,’ Peter said, ‘luckily there doesn’t seem to have been anything happening.’

‘Sssh,’ Sirius hissed from the corner, not looking back. ‘They’re still close.’

He remained alert as the shadows moved away, their voices growing ever more muffled, until they were long gone, and Remus put a hand on his shoulder.

He jumped and swore. ‘Fuck.’

Remus whispered, ‘Sorry.’

‘I think that’s it,’ Peter said. ‘I think that’s all that we’re going to see.’ He huffed in disgust. ‘What a bloody waste of our time.’

‘I’m not even convinced they were Death Eaters,’ Sirius muttered.

‘I… have no idea who or what they were,’ Remus admitted. ‘I was asleep.’

‘Dumbledore said it might not be anything,’ Peter said, stretching.

‘Then why did we bloody well come out,’ Sirius muttered, but Peter did not hear him.

‘It’s really cold out here,’ he continued. ‘Fancy a pint?’

Sirius made a weird little noise that only Remus could hear, a kind of whining intake of breath, so he said, ‘You know, I’m just exhausted. I don’t know if James told you, but we had a big raid last night…’

‘Oh, he did mention,’ Peter said. ‘Yeah, you should get some sleep. Sirius?’

‘I’ve got to go back to the office,’ Sirius said. ‘Sorry.’

‘Oh, that’s ok,’ Peter said, and if he sounded a little forlorn, Remus was too distracted to care, much. ‘Well, I guess I’ll see you later.’ He Apparated, leaving Sirius with his back to Remus and Remus with his hand on Sirius’s shoulder.

‘So,’ Remus said, suddenly very aware that Sirius had not looked at him once since that morning, ‘uhm…’

‘Yeah,’ Sirius said. He took a deep breath and turned to face Remus, leaning back against the wall. ‘Are you…’

‘Let me go home,’ Remus said, ‘and take a shower. And change my clothes. And drink a cup of strong tea. Maybe not in that order. And then we’ll meet up, ok? Give me, I don’t know, an hour?’

Sirius grinned. ‘That sounds excellent,’ he said, ‘and I don’t even feel bad about you not getting any sleep, since you seem to have gotten plenty just now.’

‘This is definitely going down as one of the most boring and useless Order patrols,’ Remus said. He noticed again how exhausted Sirius looked and asked, ‘What about you? You look like you could use a nap yourself.’

‘You’re not getting out of this now,’ Sirius said. ‘Where shall we meet?’

‘I don’t want to get out of it,’ Remus said gently. ‘And as you may recall, you owe me some answers to some questions that are very much on my mind.’ He paused and thought about his go-to date spot, having given up on the idea of impressing Sirius with his non-existent largesse and opting for good taste instead. ‘Let’s meet at Liverpool Street Station.’

 

 

‘So,’ Remus said as they sat down at his favourite curry house, ‘I think it’s impossible for you to argue with any logic whatsoever that our previous date is still ongoing.’

‘You know the phrase “dog with a bone”?’ Sirius asked, and when Remus narrowed his eyes, about to protest that he was way more majestic than any smelly dog, he continued, ‘I think we should change it to wolf.’

‘As if you aren’t stubborn and persistent when you want to be,’ Remus scoffed. He had been unprepared, when he’d reached the station and had found Sirius in front, leaning against a low brick wall and obviously, to Remus’s practiced eye, on high alert, for how, well, handsome Sirius was. Of course he’d always known it, in the abstract sense, but seeing him like this, obviously dressed to impress, and knowing that he was the one Sirius wanted to impress… it was a heady feeling. He couldn’t seem to stop flirting.

The waiter came by then with beers and to ask for their orders. Once he’d left, Remus said, ‘Well?’

‘What was it you wanted to know again?’ Sirius asked, toying with his napkin. ‘Smells great in here, Moony. How’d you find this place?’

‘Magic,’ Remus said firmly. ‘I wanted to know what, exactly, is going on?’

Sirius squinted at the table and Remus could sense him gearing up for another elusive answer, so he clarified. ‘Why did you ask me on a date? Me, you know, the person you’ve known for ten years? And so long as you’re asking people on dates who you’ve known a long time, have you got one with Peter lined up for later in the week?’

Sirius made a face and said, ‘Try not to insult me, Remus. Pete is really not my type.’

‘Too short?’

‘Too… not canine.’

Remus arched an eyebrow. ‘Is that it? Was I just the only canine around?’

‘No,’ Sirius sighed. ‘It was just a joke.’ He sighed again. ‘Look, Remus,’ and then the waiter came by with a tray of poppadums and tiny bowls of chutney and spices, and by the time that had all been arranged Sirius seemed to have clammed up again.

‘Am I going to actually have to drag this out of you?’ Remus asked. ‘Watching this is almost as painful for me as it seems to be saying it is for you.’

‘No,’ Sirius said. He set down his knife and fork, carefully, and lined them up just so with his plate. ‘Look, Remus.’

‘I am looking,’ Remus said, and his voice came out more quietly than he’d intended. ‘You haven’t been looking at me all day.’

‘It’s tough,’ Sirius said, also quietly. ‘Sometimes when I look at you, I just can’t even think, I feel like…’ He paused, took a deep breath, and then said, ‘So I was just thinking, a while ago, when I was on this raid for the Order and I was alone in this field, this was back in October, and I don’t know if you remember, but it rained all October, so the field was just incredibly muddy, and I was in it, literally lying in this mud, and things were going to absolute shit.’

‘Was this the raid on the Carmichael house?’ Remus asked. He had not been along, but he knew that it had not gone well for the Order.

‘Yes,’ Sirius said, ‘and I wound up lying in the mud all night, because I couldn’t get out of there without getting caught. And while I was lying there, I was pretty scared, you know?’ He glanced up quickly and Remus nodded, and he glanced back down again, his words tumbling out in a rush. ‘And I just kept thinking, that, well, what if that was it? What if that was all the time I had left? And I started to think about things that I’d put off, things that I’d said I’d do someday, and how maybe someday was now, and how maybe I’d never get to do those things.’

‘Like what?’ Remus asked.

Sirius looked up at him now, his gaze piercing and blue. ‘See, I always had this idea about you.’ He swallowed. ‘Like one day, when we were pretty old, you’d invite me over and we’d be sitting by your fire playing with your grandchildren, and your wife would be there too, and I’d wind up telling you this.’

The waiter arrived with their rice and they both leaned back from the table.  When he’d gone, Remus said, ‘My wife? My grandchildren?’

‘Yeah,’ Sirius said. ‘Your future family, you know?’

‘Is there a cure for lycanthropy in this beautiful future?’ Remus asked sarcastically.

‘Maybe,’ Sirius said. ‘Doesn’t matter. You’re happy, when I imagine this.’

Remus frowned, not having any idea where this was going. ‘Go on…’

‘So,’ Sirius took another deep breath. ‘So we’d be sitting there, I thought, and then, I’d tell you that when we were younger, I, well, that I’d really, that…’

The waiter appeared again. Remus wanted to strangle him, despite the heavenly smells wafting off their bowls of curry.

‘Is there anything else I can bring you?’ he asked, and Remus thought, _courage?_ , but settled for more beer. When he’d gone, he looked back at Sirius, who was now spooning curry onto his rice and studiously avoiding saying whatever he’d been about to say. The beers arrived and the waiter left and Remus said, ‘Please, tell me what you were saying.’

Sirius’s mouth wavered, and then he said, ‘What I’m trying to say, is that I realised in the mud that I might not get the chance to tell you this _someday_ , and that if I didn’t tell you now, I might very well take it to my grave.’

And now Remus knew, with a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach, what Sirius was trying to say, and it was something that he’d known for a long while, too, even if he hadn’t admitted it to himself, but he also desperately wanted to hear it from Sirius’s mouth. ‘And so you wanted to go on a date with me?’

‘Just one,’ Sirius said, very earnest. ‘That’s all that I thought I could ask for. I didn’t think you’d go for another. But then… this is more than I could have ever hoped for.’

Remus had a sudden realisation that Sirius was an adult now – that even though he’d realised it about James, who despite all previous activities had become a responsible family man, and about Peter, who had become astute and insightful to a degree that would have shocked Remus just a few years before, he somehow hadn’t realised it about Sirius. And yet here was Sirius, being responsible, having revelations, taking steps to change his life in a positive way, but trying not to be selfish, trying to think of others and most of all somehow softer, less angular, more open and kind and self-knowing than Remus had ever suspected.

‘The thing is,’ Sirius said, ‘I’ve really fancied you for a long time now.’

And maybe Remus was an adult now too, because he wanted to say something to Sirius that would take away this ache in his chest and simultaneously hold onto this moment forever, in the back corner of a crowded and fragrant curry house in one of the million small mews that looked like mere dots on a map of London and made up a human geography too vast to comprehend. He wanted them to be the only people on earth and to also be lost in the crowds so that no one would notice if he were to reach out and take Sirius’s hand here and tell him that it would be all right. That’s what he did now, reaching out across the table and squeezing Sirius’s hand tightly, quickly, before anyone would notice, so he could say, ‘Thank you.’

Sirius smiled and exhaled shakily. ‘That wasn’t so hard, was it?’ he asked, and Remus released his hand and laughed.

They finished their dinner and then walked, no real point in mind, just wandering and talking, carefully not mentioning anything of much substance, until they came abruptly upon the river and stopped at its edge underneath Blackfriars Bridge.

‘It’s a cold night,’ Remus said, leaning over the railing and looking down into the water. ‘I’d hate to fall in there.’

Sirius hummed his agreement and put a hand on Remus’s arm. ‘Then don’t lean so far out. You’re scaring me that you’ll fall in and I don’t want to have to go in after you.’

Remus laughed and leaned a bit back. Sirius’s hand stayed on his arm. ‘Would you really do that? Go in after me?’

‘I’d have to,’ Sirius said solemnly. ‘Those big feet of yours? You’d sink in an instant.’

‘How sweet you are.’

‘You’re the one doubting that I’d go in after you.’

‘It would be a terrible idea, that’s all. Can you even swim, beyond doing a doggie paddle?’

‘You know what I think?’ Sirius asked, and when Remus turned his head towards him to hear the answer, he leaned forward and pressed his lips against Remus’s. Remus froze and Sirius froze too, and they stayed like that, with their lips pressed together, listening to the Thames lap against the wooden retaining wall, for a time period that passed, for Remus, from awkwardly long into could maybe never be long enough. Then Sirius jerked back and Remus turned back to look at the river, and they were both breathing much too hard given that they had just been holding themselves in place rather than exerting any energy. Remus opened his mouth to remark upon some inanity of the river – searching for something, anything, to say, settling upon, ‘The water looks very black in the dark’ and he was just about to say it too when Sirius said, his voice deeper than normal, ‘You must be very tired. Let me walk you home.’

‘Oh,’ Remus said, and his brain seemed like it wasn’t going to make any sudden movements either. ‘Ok.’

They walked back rapidly, silently, Sirius’s gaze on the ground and Remus trying to watch him out of the corner of his eyes but terrified of what he might see – disappointment? Sadness? Love? His heart pounded in his chest for the entirety of the walk. They reached the door that led to Remus’s flat and Sirius halted, still moving in that fast, jerky manner, and said, ‘Ok, well, goodnight.’

Remus’s mouth managed to engage, although his brain was apparently still offline because he was surprised to hear himself say, ‘Wait, are you sure?’

Sirius flicked his eyes up to him. ‘Sure about what?’

‘I mean,’ Remus took a deep breath. ‘You should come up. If you want.’

‘Come up?’ Sirius repeated. ‘Upstairs? To your flat?’

‘Not come up like come up for sex,’ Remus said, and immediately wanted to slap himself in the face. Sirius looked mortified. ‘Come up like, come up and talk and I’ll make you tea or a stiff shot of firewhisky.’

‘Oh,’ Sirius said quietly. Then he smiled. ‘Ok, that sounds nice.’

Remus unlocked the door and led them up the dark stairs and to the dank hallway that led to his flat. Not for the first time, he was intensely aware of how shit his flat was, how little his PhD stipend got him, how different Sirius’s well-lit hallway looked and how this one led to this dark place where he lived, his two rooms with the hot plate and the kettle and the somewhat miraculous inclusion of an en suite, that represented all that he was and all that he feared he forever would be.

‘I don’t care, you know,’ Sirius said, hand on the buckled wallpaper of the hallway.         

‘Occlumency doesn’t work if I’m not looking you in the eye,’ Remus muttered, embarrassed, digging his keys out of his pocket. Sirius’s presence behind him felt like a warm and familiar ghost, close and comforting. Nervous, he reached back and Sirius’s hand met his, took it in and held it tightly. Remus fumbled one-handed with the keys but didn’t let go, and Sirius didn’t offer to let go either. Eventually he popped the door open and led Sirius inside, snapping the fingers of his free hand to ignite the dozen candles that lit and heated the room. Reluctantly, he pulled away from Sirius and motioned him towards the settee that, along with a groaning bookshelf and a battered coffee table, constituted all of the furniture in the main room of the flat.

‘What’ll that drink be?’ he asked, indicating the bottles along the counter in the kitchenette.

‘Just tea, I think,’ Sirius said. He’d peeled off his cloak and was rubbing his arms. ‘I haven’t slept in… some time.’

‘Good point,’ Remus said, and he put the kettle on and leaned back against the counter. Sirius was watching him, that wary look back on his face. Remus reached for the tea cups and bustled as much as was possible in the tiny space; he didn’t know what he was doing and didn’t know what he wanted to do. Sirius seemed like a magnet in the centre of the room.

‘I’m sorry,’ Sirius said suddenly.

Remus sucked in his cheeks. ‘I wasn’t even aware you knew that phrase. Where was it every time you got me sent to detention?’

Sirius laughed in surprise and said, ‘Oh, Moony.’

Remus poured the water and prodded the tea bags with a spoon. ‘Don’t be sorry.’

‘But I’ve been so…’ Sirius stopped dead and Remus turned back, eyebrows raised, delighted that he’d caught him at what had to be the oldest joke in the entire book of their friendship.

‘So what?’

Sirius glared. ‘You know what.’

‘Mm,’ Remus hummed. ‘Not sure I do.’

‘I’ve been so…’ Sirius stopped again. ‘Are you flirting with me?’

‘Good catch,’ Remus said. He poured the milk, careful not to spill it as his hands seemed to be quite shaky all of a sudden. ‘I have been for about twenty four hours now.’

Sirius didn’t respond, so he twisted around to look at him. The look on Sirius’s face gave up any pretence that he was not, indeed, serious. Feeling light-headed, Remus crossed the room – it took all of about two steps – and set the tea cups down on the coffee table. Sirius looked up at him, eyes very wide, and Remus leaned down and kissed him, quickly, neatly, on the mouth. When he drew back, Sirius’s eyes, if possible, had gotten wider. _Yes_ , he thought, he could work with this, even if it was just for the pleasure of seeing Sirius look shocked.

‘I just thought,’ Remus said, taking a deep breath, ‘that I could do better. With the kissing, that is.’ He sat down on the settee; Sirius’s hands sought his own and he took them and held them, palms up, stroking his thumbs along the other man’s knuckles. ‘You could do better too, you know.’

‘No,’ Sirius said hoarsely. ‘Well, maybe with the kissing, but not with the, well, not with you.’

Remus took up his teacup with one hand, but held tightly to Sirius’s hands with his other. ‘You’re crazy, you know,’ he said. ‘No one on earth wants to be with a werewolf.’

‘I want to be with _you_ ,’ Sirius said fervently. ‘I’ve wanted that for ages. It’s just taken me forever to do anything about it.’ He laughed. ‘This is scarier than a gang of Death Eaters. You’re scarier than that, you know.’

‘I don’t know what I did to deserve _that_ ,’ Remus said. He felt light-headed, as if he were floating a few inches above the ground and if he took a step his feet would spring gently through clouds rather than ever touching the floor. ‘Death Eaters can kill you.’

‘Yes, but you can break my heart,’ Sirius said, and Remus saw that Sirius knew that all the pretences were gone too, and that he was glad for it. He set his teacup down again, the liquid untouched, and reached forward, towards the man he’d known all along but had somehow never truly seen. Sirius came into his arms, heavy and real and very close, and Remus wrapped him up and held him as tightly as he could. Sirius curled in against his chest and Remus leaned back against the arm of the settee, Sirius’s hands on his chest and his hands stroking Sirius’s back.

‘Oof, you’re heavy,’ he murmured against Sirius’s ear.

‘You’re delightfully cushiony,’ Sirius said, turning his head and nailing Remus with those blue eyes.

‘You smell like a dog.’

‘You like that about me?’ Sirius suggested, sounding nervous, and Remus pulled him closer, if it was possible, and brushed their noses together, and this time they kissed for a long time. Eventually Sirius ducked his head, kissed Remus’s neck, and murmured, ‘I thought you said I was coming up for a drink.’

‘I made you tea,’ Remus said, doing his best exasperated impression. Explosions were going off in his head. Why hadn’t they thought of this ages ago? It certainly would have made their time at Hogwarts more interesting, not that it had needed it. Remus suspected that the real reason they hadn’t done this at Hogwarts was because they had had to grow up and grow into each other. In his arms, Sirius curled against him again, his face buried in Remus’s shoulder, and Remus reached up to stroke his silky hair. ‘You haven’t drunk it.’

‘Too tired,’ Sirius mumbled. ‘Not going to make it back to my flat. And I promise that’s not me trying to do anything ungentlemanly towards you. I’m just bloody exhausted.’

‘No,’ Remus agreed, ‘you’ll splinch yourself or fall asleep on the tube and wind up in Croydon. You’ll just have to stay here.’ He thought for a moment of leaving Sirius here on the settee, just steps from his own bed, and added shyly, ‘You can sleep with me in my bed, if you’d like.’

Sirius’s hands clenched against Remus’s chest, and Remus reached up to hold them in one of his own. ‘You sure, Moony?’ Sirius asked, soft and a little bit scared sounding.

Remus thought about all the different ways that this could end poorly; thought about what terrible multitude of jokes James and Peter were going to make; thought about the war and the evil lurking out in the world beyond this tiny, warm, candlelit space; thought about the way that Sirius felt against his body, and the smell of him, and the skin of his hands underneath Remus’s own; and he weighed all of these things against each other and found that he was unintentionally holding Sirius more tightly. ‘Stay here with me,’ he said then, and Sirius kissed him again, and he said, ‘stay here as long as you want,’ and Sirius breathed against his mouth, one hand open now and splayed over his pounding heart, ‘I’ll stay here as long as I’m able,’ and Remus ached with the realisation that those words were something he’d been longing to hear.

Not much later, Remus was lying in his bed, Sirius sound asleep and curled up against him, when he heard an owl come in through the small fireplace. It circled once and dropped an envelope on his stomach, which unfolded itself with an officious air and displayed James’s messy scrawl.

‘Stop ignoring me!! Based on the level of radio silence from both you and Padfoot, Wormtail’s evidence that you were acting weird today and wearing rumpled, smart clothes, and my own excellent sense of deduction, I have concluded that you are seeing the same woman and are fighting about it. Lily thinks there’s no woman involved at all and that you are seeing each other. Harry thinks ‘gurgle’ which I’m certain means ‘Daddy is correct.’ Please advise!!!! Prongs.’

Remus sighed, torn between the desire to stay sleepily in bed or to prove James wrong. Eventually, indecision led to sleep winning out. There would be plenty of time later, he thought, for them to explain. He turned and wrapped an arm around Sirius and fell into the world of dreams. 


End file.
